THE PASSING OF CHINA'S ANCIENT SYSTEM 109 



Editors of vernacular journals throughout the country, especially in 

 Canton (the very stronghold of literary conservatism, yet the place 

 where Kang Yu-wei had been conducting his progressive school) con- 

 tinued the crusade of reform, so that " one believed a cleansing storm 

 would soon pass over the land. And the storm came drenching part 

 of the country in blood." The era of conservatism and opposition to 

 things western culminated in the Boxer uprising of 1900, which put 

 Peking into the hands of the allies and drove the imperial court into 

 exile as far as Hsian, the capital of Shensi province. Here in 1901, 

 while still in exile, the empress dowager, into the hearts of whose ad- 

 visers a desire for better things had come as a result of the lessons 

 taught by the allies, astonished her people and the world by pro- 

 mulgating the very educational reforms for which the emperor had 

 been deposed. Her decree provided that henceforth in provincial and 

 central examinations the three groups of subjects should be as follows : 

 (1) Five topics relating to the government and history of China; (2) 

 Five themes upon the government, arts and sciences of all lands; (3) 

 Exposition of two passages from the ' Four Books ' and one from the 

 ' Five Classics.' Examiners were commanded to weight the three 

 groups equally, and in exposition of the canonical books candidates 

 were forbidden to use the form of the eight-legged essay, hitherto re- 

 quired. In writing on the practical subjects in groups 1 and 2, the 

 presentation of reality and not empty rhetoric was enjoined. 



But it would be rash to declare this reform to have been complete 

 in fact. ' Clean sweeps ' are rare, perhaps rarer in China than else- 

 where. How by the stroke of the imperial pen can the mind of the 

 nation take a new course and a million of men yearly become ac- 

 quainted with ' modern matters ' ? The vastness of the problem re- 

 quires years of intelligent, patient effort for its solution. Most of the 

 chancellors are as ignorant as the students they are set to examine as 

 to the ' laws, constitutions and political economy of western lands.' 

 In Shangtung at the first examination after the reform decrees of 1901, 

 the chancellor did indeed prepare a list of books by means of which the 

 candidates were to prepare themselves in such matters as ' political 

 economy, commercial intercourse, military training, common law, in- 

 ternational law, astronomy, geography, physics, mathematics, manu- 

 factures, sound, light, chemistry and electricity.' But the list, while 

 containing one good arithmetic, consisted chiefly of out-of-date books, 

 several lists of scientific terms, a scientific magazine defunct some ten 

 years before, the whole being thrown together without order. Yet it 

 is certain that a list of text-books in general use in the foreign-con- 

 ducted schools of China was presented to him, though no use was made 

 of it. 



In order to get an idea of the exact nature of the change brought 



